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Sweden's 'Buzzwinkle:' Drunken moose gets stuck in tree

Anchorage's famous "Buzzwinkle" -- a moose with a fondness for fermented crab apples -- may be gone, but a moose in Sweden became trapped in a tree Tuesday as it drunkenly reached for a high-up fermented apple. Buzzwinkle was a moose famous for hanging out around downtown Anchorage, including a 2007 incident in which he earned his nickname after eating a pile of fermented crab apples and stumbling around the streets with a string of Christmas lights tangled in his antlers, according to the Anchorage Daily News. He was put down in 2008. Meanwhile, more recently in Sweden, according to The Local, a moose became entangled in a tree likely after standing up on the lower branches of an apple tree to reach some of the fermented fruit it hadn't already eaten. From the Local:

While the greedy animal was reaching ever higher to reach the delicious but intoxicating fruit, it most likely stumbled into the tree, getting itself hopelessly entangled in the branches.

And from what (one witness) could gather, this particular animal had been on a day-long bender.

"Drunken elk are common in Sweden during the Autumn season," the article adds. Moose are known as elk in Europe, with the large deer more commonly known to North Americans as elk absent from the European continent. The moose was eventually freed by bending the tree down enough to release the animal. Read more from witnesses, and see a photo of the stuck moose that will be tragic to some and humorous to others, here.